3 Small Humans

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

I have three small humans (SHs), ages on vacation 2, 4, and 7 years old.
I am married to the best BH1 (and stay at home Dad) who
desperately wanted to forgo our annual cold ocean Southern California small expensive
hotel room seven day beach trip for two weeks on the much closer, warm water
shores of Rocky Point, Mexico. I am admittedly not a Mexico fan with the perceived threat
of death, kidnapping, or imprisonment. I prayed to God to change my heart
(seriously I prayed this ALOT), so that I could be excited to go. As the
vacation planner, my "on-boardedness" plays a huge role in our fun
adventures.

It took some time but my heart was changed and I started to
get excited about the trip as I looked into beach rentals in Las Conchas on
VRBO.com (vacation rental by owner listing #340111). We wanted to vacation with my
sister's family and sharing a large-ish house with five kids under 7 years old
seemed the best way to go.

Welcome to my very own top 10 list (a must for any respectable blogger) on

The top 10 ways to beach vacation with a zillion kids like a boss:

1. Location Location Location, this is the most important
factor. Seriously. We rented a house a 3 minute walk to the
shoreline. This allows for time to run a
kid up to take a poop or refresh your margarita cup. Someone losing their shit on the beach from
exhaustion and too much sunshine? Walk them up to their bunk bed for a mid-day
snooze. Spend your money on this and ask
questions before shelling out the cash.
Is the beach rocky? Is it deep? Are
the waves child-crushingly strong? Are
you going to be there during Portuguese man o'
war jellyfish season? Do
you decorate your home with priceless antiques that I am going to spend five hours
hiding from my kids when we get there?

We were directly behind the house that was on the water,which we thought would be a little safer if there were escapees

Comfortable, sturdy furniture that we were not terrified of ruining the whole time

2.Food, the second most important factor. Duh. Scientific
research has shown that a kid on vacation has to eat (or beg for food) every
three minutes and when there are five kids that equates to no less than three kids
eating or begging at all times, 16 hours a day.
The “beach castle” we rented had an outfitted kitchen with full size
refrigerator and dishwasher with large pots/pans to prepare those family
meals. We divided the work load of
making meals and cleaning up after meals according to skills of the adults. I am more of a cleaner-upper than a chef, so
my role was clear. My BH1 makes amazing
pork chili verde which in turn makes a great soup one night, tacos another
night and even breakfast burritos. My sister is a master of slow-cooked beans. Three
days before we left Arizona to go on the trip we learned that Rocky Point has a Sam’s Club and we bought
a membership. My sister and BH1 went
there and for pesos on the dollar bought two grocery carts of food that was
held to US packaging/handling standards.
Yes, I live in fear of pork from Mexico and Neurocysticercosis. We
purchased a ton of snacks, fruit, juice boxes, beers, etc to keep parents and
kids happy for long days on the beach. We prepared every single meal for 2-5 families for 12 days in the house and it was beautiful in its simplicity and
cost savings. Pro tip: We planned the meals and
themed them around kid favorites and family that would be there. Also in Mexico, filtered drinking water is important, but most places that cater to Americans know this and accommodate.

.

The Sam's Club haul

3.Family. We have several
immediate family members who are in school, living on a fixed income,
missionaries and etc that could never afford a beach vacation. We rented a house bigger than we needed and
for a few days here and there invited those family members to get a passport
and come and stay for free. We played games on
the patio with the ocean waves crashing a few feet away and laughed well into
the night. To have all those extra hands
to love and nurture your kids while you take a walk on the beach with your
beloved contributed to a magical experience for all. The more people to build castles with, show
your prettiest shell too and help you catch 15 man o’ war jellyfish the merrier. Caution: Do not make visiting family members your on-call babysitters, this is their vacation too.

My newest nephew should be here any day now...

Mountain of fun

Favorite game with a new friend

My dad, my son and my nephew looking for man o' wars

4.Take an EPIC
selfie and a million other pics of everything in between. I picked two times in the morning when
beach play was a little slower and told individual families to head to beach
for impromptu family photog session. I
am NOT a photographer but I see so much value in pictures. I used my simple camera phone to help them
make a memory and without fail the end result was always a few of my favorite
pics of the whole adventure. Pro tip: I
kept my phone in a Ziploc bag the entire trip and took it out only to take
pics. I could read my Kindle app and update Facebook through the plastic bag.

MY FAVORITE of the entire trip

5.Some
beach toys you do need but most of them you don’t. You know how they say you should get a bunch
of new toys before you go on a long car ride?
The same goes for any trip. We
bought a couple boogie boards (less boarding and more pulling a cousin on the
inch deep water of low tide until they fall off screaming with laughter), a beach aquarium, a bunch of nets, and a book on beach games and the results were
perfect. Don’t get nuts with buckets and
shovels. Kids want to explore and
building the castle consumes 8 minutes of a 9 hour day on the beach. Have contests to find the most beautiful
shell as judged by grandma, play sharks and minnows in the sand and make art of
found beach treasures. Also flotation
devices for the less strong swimmers to be worn AT ALL TIMES so if they are
swept out to sea, they float. Pro tip:
For baby, I cannot recommend the inflatable duck bath enough. You fill it with ocean water, give them some
cups and they splash at your feet for hours.
GENIUS.

Internal view of beach aquarium with some catch and release treasures

6.Do
stuff you NEVER do at home. I hate art
projects at home with glitter, glue and buttons everywhere. I hate it.
Sometimes I think that 90% of the reason we send anyone to preschool is
so that they can play with play dough there.
For my niece’s birthday I bought her a glitter tattoo set and we spent
an entire morning on the beach applying glitter tattoos to whatever arm or body
part was thrust in our faces. The best
idea (my SH2 endorsed it as her most favorite thing the entire
summer) was bringing washable non-toxic paint and collecting shells to paint
right there on the beach as the extra paint washed away into the ocean
depths. I had a container of air dry
clay that had been sitting on the shelf for 1.5 years and I brought it along
for each of us to pick and press our favorite shell into and take home as a tangible memory of the trip.

Sometimes we colored shells but most of the time we colored us

Beautiful disaster

7.Celebrate
everything and nothing. My daughter’s 3
year old birthday fell a few days into the trip and what a wonderful way to
celebrate surrounded by a bunch of family.
A plastic tablecloth and pretty garland and viola a birthDAY is made. We celebrated her from dawn until dusk with
her favorite cereal for breakfast, dinner choice, movie, and desert
choice. Admittedly this took a little
bit of coordination (I brought her gifts wrapped with us, and purchased cereal
and cake mix on the Arizona side), but it was really fun and worth it. We subsequently chose a different birthDAY
for my niece and nephew who are also July birthdays and did the same thing with
wrapped gifts and their special day using the same garland and table
cloth. News flash: 3 years old don’t
know that it is not their ACTUAL birthday and nor do they care.

Goofy party favor sunglasses selfie

I'm THREE!

Note insta-party with banner and tablecloth

8.Outdoor
shower. Yup, it is that simple. YOU MUST HAVE ACCESS TO AN OUTDOOR
SHOWER. This cannot be over stated. Every single person rinsed feet and bathing
suits off in the outdoor shower before he/she every considered ascending the steps
to the house. I brought kid shampoo that
was good for chlorine or ocean water and left it in the shower as well as a kid
conditioner. Swimsuits were rinsed and
hung immediately and sand sprayed out of every nook and cranny a minimum of
twice daily. My kids did not take one
single shower inside the entire 12 days, not.a.one. My husband thinks my obsession with the outdoor
shower is a little ridiculous but if I am being honest it made the trip for me. I would be remiss in not saying that for
anything over a three day vacation with kids, you also have to have a full size
washer and dryer at your disposal. For
bonus points, we had opportunity to hire the cleaning crew of the home where we
stayed to clean the house mid-stay for a small fee and it was worth every penny
to have clean, non-sandy sheets even just for a night. 9.Bring
every article of sun protective clothing you own and if you are sure you have
enough stop and purchase more before you go.
I went so far as to have Amazon send another rash guard for me to my
brother’s house so he could bring it with him when he came down a week into our
trip. Everyone in our party had at least
one long sleeve and several short sleeve rash guards that were worn at all times. Everyone had hats that they were forced to
wear every.single.day. Yes, we religiously
applied sunscreen (each family brought at least 3 large tubes/cans/sticks) but
for the close-to-the-equator sun we were exposed to no amount of sunscreen
would have been enough. Not a single
child was sunburned or even “pink” which made us feel like awesome parents to
be truthful. Also I brought shorts and t-shirts
for everyone to wear in their down time that no one wore; they just took up
valuable space in suitcases. It was
swimsuits or pajamas/lounging clothes for all. And while we are talking about what to wear, every family member should have a water shoe that can scramble over tide pools and protect your feet from stepping on a jellyfish.

Also shade, BRING SHADE!

All I see in this picture is 3 kids without their hats on

10.Go to the beach. Get up, apply sunscreen, and just go to the beach.

Here was our daily schedule:

6:30am –
Kids wake up7:00am –
Parents finally get up too (check tide schedule and inform house of low tide/hide tide), make coffee,
poor cereal into bowls for kids7:30-8:30am
– Make breakfast with eggs and/or tortilla of some kind8:30-9:00am
– Wrangle kids into swimsuits and sunscreen the hell out of them, prepare first
cocktail of the day to take to beach9:00am-12:00pm – Beach12:00-3:00pm
– Shower the crew, lunch everyone, and put all kids down for a nap. Adults go to corner store for ice and beer or
walk back down for solo beach time or take a nap or read a book or play a game
on the patio. Pro tip: With so many adults there was always one or
two willing to stick around and keep an eye on the house while kids napped.3:00-3:30pm
– Wrangle back into swimsuits and reapply sunscreen3:30-Sunset – Beach.Pro
tip: Bring cash for mango guy and ice cream bar guy who inevitably found
our crew on the beach.Sunset-8:00pm
– Shower the crew, dinner, read books or watch TV and off to bed8:00pm-?? –
Porch games (our favorites were Rumors, Apples to Apples, Dominos, etc).

Have no
agenda or set schedule. I learned this
from BH1. He is master of shoving kids
out the door and making them figure out what to do. BH1 was first on the beach each morning,
shoveling the ever popular sea wall for all to climb on, build tunnels through,
and destroy. I know you know that kids don’t
care about fancy dinners at restaurants; they don’t want to have to sit down,
behave, and color with four crayons. Do
they wish we went to Disneyland instead?
Yes, of course, but since they have yet to go they have no idea what
they are missing and for as long as I am able to make the outdoors “the best
vacation ever” then I am going to do it.

What makes
it a family trip vs. a vacation? Anything
you do at this stage of the game is “work”. Ensuring that your kids live and are safe is a lot of work,
but in the middle of that work is watching them experience the world and if
you can enjoy the view and relax a little it really can be a vacation. Don’t misunderstand me, there is no way the
whole trip will be a vacation, but there are a few hours and even a whole day or
two that can be. That being said the
1:30pm daily cocktails on the Margarita deck certainly helped.

See you next year Mexico. If you love what you are reading here and want to keep up with all the small humans updates please like my Facebook page, follow me on Google+, or even follow me on Twitter

The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (ESV)

My dad was critically ill in April,
several days of which he spent on the ventilator due to pneumonia that had
infiltrated over 90% of his lungs. The
infectious disease physician told us, “He has the captain of all pneumonia
bacteria. We have no idea how things
will go.” He walked into the emergency
department with a fever of 103, oxygen saturations of 82% (and could not get
them higher than 91% despite high flow oxygen) and blood pressure of 74/40,
renal failure, and confusion. Chest xray
revealed severe multi-lobar pneumonia.
He was in severe septic shock.
Two days prior he was pushing two his grand-daughters on the swings at
the third birthday party for his fifth grandchild. He is still here and I know restored to
better than before. He has a new lease on
life and is a changed man.

My parents on family vacation 3 months later

Delirium, ICU delirium for days and
days. He stayed awake for 72 hours straight
TWICE over those two weeks as we watched every passing hour he would sink a
little further into confusion. The
delirium clearly precipitated by insomnia.
He does not respond to “sedating” medications like the other
99.99%. No amount of medication can
bring him back to us and so we wait sleepless at his bedside for days praying
for even 30 minutes of restorative rest.
He mumbles nonsense, makes up delusions that he will spend months
convincing himself never happened. At
one point, I turned on white noise in hopes of limiting the bells/distractions
in the ICU praying it would give him rest.
It did not work. He started to
reach his arm back, feel the wash of water from a hallucinated waterfall in his
hospital room which he would then put his arm back in bed after shaking the
imaginary dripping water off his hand.
He did this close to 300 times that night. Ever present to help orient him over and over
again, to calm him when he is tearfully yelling at “Israel follow the blue
light!!” As his children and wife there
is no one else that can supplement our presence. It is our circle and us alone that can help
draw him from the depths, 24 hours a day.
The entire medical team helpless against his insomnia. Every study you read tells you that after an experience like this (much less two very similar experiences in three years) that he will never be the same. He has an increased risk of depression, suicide, mental slowing, permanent physical debility, and recurrence of a life threatening illness.

I wavered in my resolve and faith that
he would ever sleep again or that his mind would ever come back to us. He still recalls delusions with amazing
realism and clarity to the point that we are checking to make he did not
actually close the checking account as he thought during the zombie apocalypse.

My dad has been through more than one
man should in this life, he has overcome so much to bring him to where he is
today. He works diligently on his
relationship with God, his wife (my mom), and his children and loves his
grandchildren desperately. In the midst
of unexplainable hardship I am sure his faith has wavered as did mine when he
was so sick. God gave him an
unbelievable gift. My dad saw heaven. Please don’t confuse this with one of his
delusions or hallucinations which escalated as sleep slipped further and
further out of grasp.

The tube was removed from his airway
at approximately 10:00am on a Sunday at the exact time that multiple
congregations had joined in prayer for his healing. He had just rested for the past 4 days in a
coma-induced sleep. My older brother and
I watched expectantly for how he would act and feel. He was doing great, confused about what had
happened and where he was, tearful and scared but then he started to tell us…

My
Dad: I saw heaven. I saw heaven.
I saw heaven. It was so bright,
so bright, so bright. It was amazing, so
amazing. Everyone was there, Honey and
Zion (pets we had loved and lost) they were leaping and jumping, leaping and
jumping, leaping and jumping.Me: What did you hear?

Dad: I heard a chorus or angels singing Glory,
Glory, Hallelujah, Glory, Glory, Hallelujah (raises both arms in the sky).My brother: Were you scared? Or was it
amazing?Dad: It was amazing, I was never ever scared. It was so bright.

Okay so like us, you are hopeful but
skeptical at this point. It all sounds
pretty legit and he is not hallucinating or describing any other type of
delusion and he has just gotten four entire days of sleep.

A few minutes later looking my older
brother genuinely surprised:

Dad:
Son you are fat?Me: Dad
that is not nice, you need to apologize.Dad:
Oh Son I am so sorry I said that.

A few minutes later (looking at his
legs and feet and moving them about to confirm they are his):

Dad:
These are my legs? But these are old man
legs…

Watching a familiar TV news anchor a
few minutes later:

Dad: He is so old, is he still alive? I can’t believe he is still alive, he is so
old and bald.

So to you this disjointed series of
comments has no relevance but to me it confirmed that he saw heaven. He saw a glorious world of resurrection
bodies that are beautiful and perfect; people and angels whose only purpose is
to glorify God. There is no one
overweight, no one old, no one bald. He
was pulled back from that glorious place and awoke in an ICU room and nothing
was how it had been in heaven.

My brother: Did you ever doubt that there was
a heaven?

In a whispered tone he replied.

Dad:
Yes, but never again. I saw heaven and
it is real.

We all doubt and I bet that some will
accuse me of wanting to believe in what he saw for my own selfish reassurance
that God and heaven is real. I cannot
deny those claims because yes I do believe heaven is real as is God. Not because of what he saw but because of
what I saw. I saw a man on the brink of
death come back restored. I saw answered
prayers by the thousands. People reached
out to me that I had not spoken to in years to provide comfort and prayer;
strangers in countries across the globe were praying for his restoration. I heard the word that God gave my sister that
would be home and whole in 7 days. I
couldn’t even utter those words as a possibility because to me they were too
big to dream. A few days later, I was
begging God in prayer to know if his will for my father was to live or die as I
truly did not know. He was discharged to
home 3 days later which was exactly 7 days after my sister received that word
from God. God comforted me through songs
when I was too tired to pray. “This is
going to be a glorious unfolding, just you wait and see and you will be
amazed. You’ve just got to believe the
story is so far from over so hold on to every promise God has made to us and
watch his glorious unfolding.” Glorious
Unfolding by Steven Curtis Chapman.

My dad received the best gift he could ever receive… an
opportunity to know with certainty that there is better than this broken and
lost world and a fire instilled to pursue that future with every fiber of who
he is. I too was given an amazing gift;
I know why all this happened. My God is
jealous for me.

Grandsons and Grandpa

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Monday, March 23, 2015

We have chickens. We had five and now we have four. One of them was a bad bird, a real mean S.O.B. When we picked out our little chicks we gave each of them names and then as they grew up, they each were given personalities. Inky was by far the kindest and smartest, so patient to be squeezed just a little too tight by a two year old. Bonnie and Dottie are the little old ladies of the group, the conversations I envision are quite caddy. Diva(n) is nervous and the biggest, a stick to herself kind of gal who likes to preen. Laughingly their names match their ridiculous made-up personalities.

Everybody loves a baby chick

Now that you have some background, I will tell you about our fifth chicken, Chicken Little (so named by SH1). Chicken Little, later nick-named "Red" was always a personality struggle. He liked to herd the other chickens and was always pushing them out in front of the bus so to speak (the bus being the damp hands of a two year old SH3 desperate for chicken affection).

SH3's favorite place to be

My husband (BH1) came to me with this chicken drama, so we made the move to the great outdoor coup to see if a bit more space and time was what the ladies needed to settle in. Things went from bad to worse and Red started pulling feathers and making chickens bleed with merciless pecks for no reason. My chicken ladies started acting like Red was the abusive partner, making sure she was in front of them and they always had her in their sights, segregating away from her in a group. Poor sweet Inky took the brunt of Red's attacks; her feathers being pulled out and protecting her friends from the same fate.Red was placed in solitary confinement, a fate not fair to a social animal and so after countless hours of reading on the futility of chicken rehabilitation, the decision was sadly made to dispose of Red. Her death was quick and painless and not viewed by any SHs. Red was dead. I was nervous about what I would find when I got home from work. Were the SHs going to be okay with this news? Would I be expected to eat it? I sure hope he doesn't expect me to eat it!I was mainly worried how my sweet SH2, by far the most introverted and introspective of her sibling crew, would take the news. BH1's education on the circle of life and expectations of being a member of our family clearly shone through when she calmly explained to me, "She was a mean chicken; Daddy said he had to kill her to stop hurting the other chickens." Not hurting others. She was right. We don't hurt others. A lesson that weighs heavily on this tender hearted SH2. I wonder if she thought the punishment fit the crime.

SH2 holding her favorite Inky

The chickens roam freely under the watchful eye of my husband for a few hours in the morning. The dogs have recently viewed there movements with interested reservation. I am loading SH1 into the car and BH1 alerts me to the fact that our Great Dane has just eaten a chicken and he was not sure if it was still alive. He then jumps in the car to take SH1 to school. I rush in the house to find a Great Dane and Mastiff with their heads hanging low in shame. Bonnie and Dottie were over by the chicken coup clucking in hushed tones about the events that had just transpired. My small human ladies were pressed against the sliding glass window nervously watching. I saw a small commotion in the hedge and found Diva(n) and Inky huddled in terror. Inky's chest was wet with dog drool. I picked her up and let the small humans outside to help me calm them down. We spoke softly to Inky and after a bit I set her down and watched her limp away, no longer scared. New rule: The dogs are not allowed outside when the chickens are roaming. We don't hurt living beings, but I couldn't help but be slightly troubled by the double standard we had created. Red lost his life because he hurt the other chickens, the Great Dane did not. You could say the dog was doing what was instinctual, but then again so was the chicken--he lived in the same home and had the same upbringing as the other four, no one made him a bad bird, he simply was. How do you resolve this when the "natural order" of things breaks down? Thankfully the kids didn't ask me any of those questions. In the Bible, Solomon asked for wisdom above all things and his words weighed on my heart,

Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people? I Kings 3:9

We still have four chickens, three small humans and two dogs. SH2 came over to me with a serious look on her face and told me, "Mom, I am not eating those chickens." I sighed and scooped her up to whisper in her ear, "Me neither, baby, me neither."

Please God give me a mind to govern this your great people.

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Monday, February 2, 2015

My answer is always the same, “It depends; it is a game
changer.” I don’t regret a single minute
of my world with SH3 in it—not one single minute. She is by far my worst sleeper. She wakes up early and yells at her sister until
she wakes up too. She strips her diaper
off, clogs the toilet and poops on the floor.
She pushes a chair to the counter and in a bin of 100 washable pens finds the
Sharpie and hides to ruin furniture, walls, and clothes in peace. She eats dirt, play-dough, beads, anything
really. I have nightmares of her eating
a button battery and my sleep deprived mind invents the unbelievably horrific
sequelae that will ensue (honest truth—multiple nightmares). We have to tell ourselves, BH1 and I, not to
let her, SH1, or SH2 over hear us call her “trouble” or “the destroyer of fun” under
our breath because that is likely not good for any child’s psyche.

Yes that is Desitin...head to toe purple tube Desitin

She gets to keep her pacifier far longer than we ever
thought of letting the other two have one.
We tried potty training for a week and gave up until “she is
ready”. I have been known to look away
when I see her hit her sibling in hopes that they won’t tattle and I won’t have
to punish her. Time out for her is mere
seconds and certainly not the requisite two minutes her siblings would have sat. She doesn’t have to sit in the high chair or
wear a bib although she is the messiest eater.
We watch what she wants on TV because her cries for “Peep and The Big
Wide World” are loudest. She has this
ridiculous ugly stuffed rabbit with plastic scratched off eyes that is
lovingly called “Babbit” and we all take to searching the ends of the earth to find
it when it goes missing. Some part of me wants to say that she has
clearly taken the fight out of me, but maybe that is good. Maybe she took the fight out of me for all
the fights that don’t need to be had. I may be close to admitting that my two year old has taught me to pick my
battles.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Every year since BH1 and I were married we have
written a Christmas letter. Honestly, the first few years before kids when I was in residency the content was a little sparse. Yes, yes I know it is seemingly generic and
ridiculous. I too have gotten the letters extolling the virtues of "perfect" children wherein Johnny is playing
6 sports at a college level even though he is in the fifth grade and Susie is a
straight A student with her heart set on Julliard at the age of 12. Our letter is not that letter. Sure we
get a chance to brag about our kids (who wouldn't?), but ultimately it is our
year in review. Our chance to look back on the year, good and bad and
reflect on all the (mis)adventures we had and how we grew spiritually,
emotionally, and physically.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Yes, my kids are in that super hilarious (*sarcasm*) phase in
which "potty words" are really funny. They are funny to drop at
the dinner table, to substitute in Frozen song lyrics in the car ("Let it gooo, Let it gooo, the poopy never bothered me anyway"), to whisper loudly in an ear, to shout as you jump off the jungle gym, and everywhere in
between. Our canned line has been,
"Potty words belong in the bathroom", and as expected they are wise
to this and now upon entering the bathroom in any capacity they will sing song
potty words the entire livelong day.
They are smart; they get it.
Poopy is funny. What is not funny
is that SH2 still has several pee accidents a day and now SH3 wants to start using the "big girl potty."